Has Nessie Gone Belly-Up?

The last 18 months have been the longest stretch of time since 1925 with no "confirmed" sightings of the Loch Ness Monster, and the Scotsman who keeps a record of sightings is starting to get worried. "It's very upsetting news and we don't know where she's gone," Gary Campbell tells the BBC. "The number of sightings has been reducing since the turn of the century but this is the first time in almost 90 years that Nessie wasn't seen at all." Three purported photos of the beast from last year turned out to be a wave, a duck, and a picture not even taken on Loch Ness.

But Campbell, who cites a total of 1,036 sightings, thinks the monster is just taking a break. "I'm convinced that Nessie has just taken some time out and will be back with a vengeance this year," he says. And writing for LiveScience, Benjamin Radford notes that with no waterways leading from the 20-mile-long lake to the sea or any other bodies of water, "the Nessie creatures are presumably locked in the lake." Yes, "creatures." Radford writes that if the Loch Ness Monster does exist, there is more than one of them there. Meanwhile, Britain's "High Priest of White Witches" has an alternative explanation, the Scotsman finds. "I personally believe Nessie is a ghost of a dinosaur, who has been regularly seen on the loch," he says. "But the spirit of the creature has been so exploited in recent years I decided to carry out an exorcism, hence no sightings of the monster." The witch says he plans to lift the spell this summer. (Click to read about another discovery made about Loch Ness.)